Especially when sitting in San Francisco these days, Bordeaux seems so very far away.

Not just in geography - although the proximity of Napa Valley has always given a good excuse to dream of Cabernet and Merlot much closer at hand. But also because Bordeaux, as a wine market, has moved on to other corners. For that matter, so have we.

No one is at fault. For Bordeaux's part, the allure of China and the Asian market has been too strong to avoid, new locales to court for the ever-higher prices that its best wines command.

For our part, there has been the sort of end to a friendship that comes not from anger but from neglect. Bordeaux is fab, sure, but lately Americans have been more inclined to hang out with our ambitious new friends in Beaujolais or the Loire, to say nothing of Bierzo or Campania.

The region's top growths have enjoyed an almost astonishing momentum in recent years. Chateau Latour felt like stretching its economic muscle enough to sit out this year's tasting of the new 2012 vintage, throwing a big wrench into the long-established en primeurs system, and confounding the negociants who have for centuries been market-makers.

Other first growths like Lafite-Rothschild hit record prices in the beloved 2009 and 2010 vintages, high enough that the more modest 2011 brought a widespread drop in price, a signal that the ambitions even of the world's most proper wine region had limits.

For all the recent churn, the larger prospects for Bordeaux, with its 8,500-plus properties, are increasingly tepid - something even those high in its ranks now acknowledge.

"The mistake we made in Bordeaux was perhaps to forget the historical market," Thomas Duroux, CEO of Chateau Palmer, told me during a recent trip. "There is a huge problem for the cru bourgeois level. There is no distribution."

As a particularly ambitious second growth, Palmer is on a big upswing (most of its 135 acres will be farmed organically by year's end), and Duroux is confident enough in his own market that he is lobbying for more chateaus to hold back some stock and sell mature wines into the market.

Here, though, he was referring to that level of wines below the growths classified in 1855 - wines that can be very good but lack the immediate cachet of the region's hierarchy.

His point is salient: The Bordeaux market, ever keen to chase the hotness, has let its supporting columns crumble a bit. Importers on these shores can court many other regions nowadays - emerging spots that offer the charm of the new without the pretense of the old.

This isn't news on the East Coast, typically a stronger market for Bordeaux, where the area's fortunes had fallen so far that true believers, including Terroir owner Paul Grieco and importer Daniel Johnnes, began campaigning to reintroduce its charms, wooing young drinkers more conversant with Etna Rosso.

That evangelism has yet to cross into our time zone, but the 2010 vintage now showing up on shelves (or not, given the woes of distribution) is an excellent one with which to rekindle a fascination.

The 2010 wines received both hype and blowback; beloved, yes, but after tastemakers gushed over the 2009s and then repeated with the following vintage, there were more than a few scowls that Bordeaux was back in one of its all-children-above-average modes.

The fleshy 2009s were the sort of wine that make quick friends (same with Burgundy), but the 2010s are arguably the more complex, more structured and ultimately more pleasing vintage.

I figured it was time for a fresh look at the region's wines - not so much at that classed-growth level but in simpler realms. In short, the charms of a very good vintage like 2010, one with both ripeness and structure, have the benefit of extending even to Bordeaux's more basic bottles. Nothing in our tasting exceeded $40, and as often as not, we needn't have gone much above $20.

In this vintage, at least, here are wines that brim with the best qualities of their base material: Cabernet and Merlot that taste as they should, rather than the confections too many Americans now associate with those grapes.

They show few of the green, astringent qualities that created Bordeaux skeptics, but also little of the cheap oak flavor and sugar that pervade inexpensive American Cabernet.

Here's hoping, then, that the hints of evangelism seen on the other coast begin to travel west. It's not the easiest sell to turn 6,000 miles afield for Cabernet when we have some 80,000 acres in our backyard. But at the same time, if California didn't have a longtime adoration of Bordeaux, we would have had little inspiration for our achievements here at home.

There are still innate charms in even basic Bordeaux - charms that we seem to have forgotten of late. If it takes a bit of work to hunt down a more bourgeois bottle or two of the 2010s, make the effort. These are efforts to rekindle even a skeptic's love of wines that have, of late, been sorely misunderstood.

2010 Chateau Haut Beausejour Saint-Estephe ($33, 14% alcohol): This property overhauled by the Roederer firm in Champagne shows a great Merlot-focused richness to the appellation. A slight oak aspect comes in, but dried thyme and a wonderful coppery aspect to the nose, make it an engaging example of St.-Estephe's possibilities in this vintage. (Importer: Maisons Marques & Domaines)

2010 Chateau de Sours Bordeaux Red ($20, 13.5%): From an estate south of Libourne, here's a set of fashionable, pretty wines, including this Merlot-focused bottling, aged primarily in older oak. It offers a lot in the bottle (doubly so for the screwcap - a bold statement for stodgy Bordeaux). A great spice and savory presence - cumin, fennel seed, chicory - match vibrant red currant fruit and fine Merlot tannins. And the property's excellent La Fleur d'Amelie ($15, 13.5%) shows welcome moist-earth and dried tarragon accents in a Merlot blend. (Importer: OId Bridge Cellars)

2010 Chateau Respide-Medeville Graves Red ($34, 14%): Christian Medeville's family (also of Sauternes' Chateau Gilette) has owned this property near Preignac since 1980, and his daughter Julie now runs the property with her Champenois husband, Xavier Gonet. A mix of Cabernet and Merlot, here's a sleek, stony Graves showing power and juniper spice to its plummy fruit. A smoky aspect will make it even more interesting with time. The Gonets' 2010 Cru Monplaisir Bordeaux Superieur ($24, 13.5%) is similarly supple and perfumed, full of graphite and jasmine. (Importer: Martine's Wines)

2010 Chateau Roustaing Bordeaux Red ($10, 13%): This property of the Mazeau family shows the value of the Entre-Deux Mers area when tended well, in a Franc-dominant blend that's typically tank-aged and full of character. With robust black currant, celery seed and a smoked-tobacco edge, it's just what you'd want in a modest Bordeaux - an astonishing amount of wine for the money. (Importer: Grape Expectations)

2010 Chateau de Cugat Francis Meyer Bordeaux Superieur Red ($23, 14%): Francis Meyer's grandmother acquired this property in Blasimon, due east of the city of Bordeaux, in 1926. This is ambitious stuff: big, Merlot-focused and aged in new oak, it shows lovely cedar and violet accents to its deep fruit, and a liqueur-like richness that balances its slightly tight structure. The more basic 2010 Chateau de Cugat Cuvee Premiere Bordeaux Superieur ($16, 14%) offers a slightly more rustic texture, but great mineral character balances its fresh blackberry flavors. (Importer: Charles Neal Selections)

2010 Chateau Lamothe-Bergeron Haut-Medoc ($18, 13.5%): This property near the edge of St.-Julien relies on a bit more Franc (about 14 percent) and here it's expressed as a deep tobacco aspect, with tense tannins and pretty raspberry fruit. A bit young, but likely to blossom in the next two to three years. (Importer: K&L Wine Merchants/Premier Wine Co.)